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Races of Isaldor - The Kenos
Average Height: 24-28 Inches; Quadrupedal Average Weight: 80-130 Ibs Common Fur Colors: White; Various shades of Grey. Some have speckled coats. Common Eye Colors: All kenos have blue eyes. Physical Descriptor Scholarly and regal, kenos are quadrupedal doglike creatures. Their most distinguishing features are the curly ram-like horns they hold on their forehead and their twin tails. kenos are covered in a thick layer of shaggy fur that is very much attuned to northern climates, although the creatures have followed human cultures all over the world and as such, some keep their hair cut shorter. Their fur is usually one dominant color, either white or some shade of grey. Rarely, you can find a kenos with spots that cover their fur. Their tails are an interesting feature. They can best be described as looking similar to a grain of wheat, rye, barley, or other similar plants. Their base is very narrow, but the fur towards the tip gets wider. It’s theorized that they’re useful for helping the creature balance as it walks across something like a narrow beam - agility is a very inborn ability for the kenos. The tails cannot be used to grip, being too weak. They are very much like a dog’s tail in that it has relatively limited motion when compared to a cat’s tail. They can bend up, shoot straight, wag horizontally, or wag vertically. A kenos’ horns are hollow. And unlike the ram of which it most resembles, both male and female kenos exhibit similar horns. However, they are mostly ornamental. If a kenos was to ram or charge something, the best possible thing they could hope for is some lasting pain and a nasty case of whiplash. They are better used for defense, but most kenos don’t even use their horns for that. A kenos feet end in soft paws. They have retractable claws that are very much useful for gripping into dirt or wood. Unfortunately they aren’t strong enough to allow a kenos to climb up a straight vertical surface, but they do enable defense from slipping down mountains or falling off of narrow passages. kenos are also one of the very few sapient races that do not have opposable thumbs. Kenos are omnivores and they have teeth for both eating plant matter and meat. Eating uncooked meat will most likely get a kenos sick. Kenos have a need for starches in their diet, moreso than most of the other sapient races, even humans.Their eyes, excepting color, are very similar to human eyes. As for their voice, they have an exceptionally wide vocal range. They can accurately learn to speak both the languages of the drik and the udrezo with no conflict. A kenos' brain however is seen as highly developed, having many more connections than what would be seen in a human’s brain. They have the reputation for being incredibly intelligent and incredibly wise, as this allows them to think and react more quickly than most. It also gives them a leg up if they should attempt to learn the magical arts. This is counter-acted by the most tragic fact about the kenos. They tend to live, on average, eight years, with two of those years being spent in childhood. 16 years is the oldest anyone has found a kenos live. This fact affects kenos and those they interact with in many philosophical ways. The reason for this tragically young death is unknown. The leading theory is that their brain is too tired of constantly doing this work and simply gives up. This theory does hold merit, because the kenos' evolution… has a very murky past. History, Distribution, and Demographics Kenos are a very new sapient species, relatively speaking. Beyond any unknowns or questioned species like the tysipsu, kenos are the youngest sapient species recently crossing the cusp of 200 years. Their origin lives on the border of history and of legend. It involves a deranged human named Nysoth. He was a magic-wielder and he had a reputation for attempting many bizarre and immoral experiments. Sometimes it was to satiate a sick curiosity, and sometimes it was to other ends .I could on to detail everything this man did, but we’ll stick to the story with his desire to disprove the core tenement of Editrudism. The basic idea was that once a species began to eat the fruit of an Editrude tree, they would become sapient. The logic was simple. If he’d made a species sapient by another method, then he would have disproved the myth. He experimented on fleece dogs in Adath, locked up in some bizarre facility. The exact spells used in this experiment are unknown, but from what we do know of his other experiments they couldn’t have been pleasant. What is generally agreed on is that he mutated some of these dogs and forced them to breed, speeding along their evolution in all kinds of haphazard ways. What is known is that the experiment succeeded. Debatably. The species gets its name from the first intelligent creature created by this process. He was named Kenos, by Nysoth. Kenos passed this name down to his own species when he wanted to give himself his own name. The desire to name himself was proof to Nysoth that this creature was sapient. This came about after several combined mutations, like the twin tails and retractable claws. From what the stories say, there were other mutations that lived and died within this process, like fire breath, creatures with six legs, excessive strength. Unfortunately for Nysoth, he had succeeded too well. Not only were these creatures intelligent, they were very intelligent. In fact, there’s a kenos joke that humans don’t want their children to be stupid, but paradoxically it’s their greatest fear if their children become smarter than they are. Kenos played Nysoth like a fiddle, with plans to ruin him. There are many theories as to what specifically it was. Beyond attempting to disprove a religion, it’s not really known what Nysoth wanted with an intelligent species. Most say that he wasn’t prone to thinking ahead. Some say that he wanted to use his new monsters to conquer the world. Some say that he had more noble ambitions that were misunderstood - creation for creation’s sake as it were. And the rest say that he was just a crackpot. He did what he did because he was crazy. My opinion on the matter is irrelevant because even the kenos can’t agree on what this man’s plans were. The only thing truly known is that he wanted something from Kenos… something that outraged him. After Nysoth created more than enough of his species to propagate, Kenos decided to destroy everything that he worked for. Nysoth had been boastful, claiming to be above nature. I am only telling you his side of the story. Kenos and those that listened to him destroyed any records that Nysoth had made, and destroyed as much evidence of the experiments happening as possible. No known records exist. Then Kenos told the world that Nysoth merely got mutated dogs to eat from the fruit of the Editrude Tree. Getting an animal that isn’t sapient to eat the fruit of an Editrude tree is known to most as an impossible task. Under common circumstances, if I were to get my cat to eat this fruit while still ripe I would become famous rather quickly. However, Nysoth was instead branded as a liar, attempting to play a cruel trick on the world. Nysoth fled into the forest in shame. He had failed his task, and his fate is largely unknown. What is known is that the world had a new sapient species on their hand, and their interactions tend to lead to conflict as they try to find their place. Fleece dogs were and still are being used as pets and hunting aids all over the world. The kenos originally tried to fill those roles. Needless to say, it didn’t work. The kenos found it degrading at best, and to this day calling a kenos a “dog” is a deep insult and it makes them angry rather quickly. Some kenos tried to go back even further and tried to act like wolves, hunting in the woods. They were certainly built for it, although certain aspects of their diet - like their need for starch - made it difficult. Other kenos tried to compete in human societies. They were naturally drawn to things like scholars or scientists. Unfortunately, their short life expectancies got in the way for attaining the tenure and credentials that a human or chrail would need to hold those positions. Kenos culture Kenos can be described as a race trying to find a culture. Kenos have had the tendencies to be nomads, or attempt to blend into human societies. Some have even attempted to form their own villages, but the lack of opposable thumbs has made actually constructing them quite difficult. They certainly haven’t failed at surviving. They’ve managed to spread to most of Myseda, and beyond. The two words that could describe your average kenos are “intelligent” and “dignified.” They also do seem to have intrinsic traits to the dogs they have descended from, such as loyalty for friends and family and an easy-going nature. But, as I’ve previously stated, calling a kenos a “dog” is beyond offensive. In a sad twist of fate, the vast majority of them live lives similar to household dogs. They make deals with humans or sometimes drik to be companions in order to have a roof over their heads. From there, they usually try to find their own work and live their own lives, and they will never hesitate to remind their host how independent they are. Kenos tend to find themselves as scholars, teaching peoples of the other sapient species magnitudes of years older than themselves. While chrails have the most inborn magical talent, kenos have the best learning ability for magic. What might take a human being one thousand hours to learn, a kenos can learn it anywhere from 100 hours to 50 hours. This largely comes from an eidetic memory. If kenos could live longer, they would have the potential to dominate the world. It’s hard to figure out what any individual kenos thinks about having such a short lifespan. The myth is that they’re all in denial about it. With the vast majority of them not living a decade, it’s most likely them just not wasting their very limited time thinking about it. At the same time, no kenos, would ever plan for something that would take longer than their entire life, like travelling the entire globe. My personal opinion is that they are hyper aware of their mortality. However, talking about it to them is unlikely to yield a straight answer. In fact, they are very few straight answers when it comes to the kenos, the creatures that are still trying to find their place in this world. Category:Miscellaneous